NEWSLINK: As ‘Foreign Agent’ Law Takes Effect in Russia, Human Rights Groups Vow to Defy It

[As ‘Foreign Agent’ Law Takes Effect in Russia, Human Rights Groups Vow to Defy It – Ellen Barry – New York Times- November 22, 2012 – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/rights-groups-in-russia-reject-foreign-agent-label.html?_r=0]

Ellen Barry and the New York Times cover Russia’s adoption of its “Foreign Agent Law” impacting nonprofits:

Workers at the human rights organization Memorial arrived at work on Wednesday morning to see a phrase spray-painted across their office building: “FOREIGN AGENT.” Vandals scrawled the same words in giant, sloppy white letters across the door of For Human Rights, which represents citizens in disputes with the Russian police or prosecutors.

The phrase, which to Russians evokes treachery and cold war espionage, was repeated many times on Wednesday, when a new law came into force requiring nonprofit groups that receive financing from outside Russia to identify themselves as “foreign agents.”

After Russians took the streets in mass protests against the Kremlin and election fraud, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of foreign subversion to villify the protests, followed by the adoption of the Foreign Agent Law:

The law was hurriedly passed two months after the inauguration of President Vladimir V. Putin, who has accused foreign governments of provoking the large anti-Kremlin demonstrations that began here last winter. The law has been accompanied by other measures discouraging interaction with foreigners, like expanding the legal definition of treason to include “providing financial, technical, advisory or other assistance to a foreign state or international organization.”

Some groups have vowed to defy the law, which they say, by branding them “foreign agents” will smear them in the eyes of average Russians:

Many groups like Memorial and For Human Rights have decided to defy the new law, despite the threat of fines, a forced shutdown or, if prosecutors choose to pursue a criminal charge, a prison sentence of up to two years. Oleg P. Orlov, Memorial’s chairman, said that accepting the “foreign agent” label would so undermine public trust that rights advocates would no longer be able to carry out work like monitoring prison conditions or researching disappearances in the restive North Caucasus.

“A foreign agent equals a traitor, a betrayer of the homeland,” he said. Groups that comply, he added, “will be outcasts in this society. They will be branded. The public will look at them with suspicion, and officials will simply refuse to associate with them. They will be outcasts.”

Click here for full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/rights-groups-in-russia-reject-foreign-agent-label.html?_r=0